


Once, I Had This World

by scarecrowes



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: Drug Addiction, Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 06:12:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarecrowes/pseuds/scarecrowes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was a moment that should not have happened, and for the next year you'll pretend that it didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once, I Had This World

You find him burning up and utterly unaware of you - alone, in a hotel room that amounts to far less than what he'd ever normally pay for. The needle's rolled out of his fingers where they dangle off the bed, and you kick it before you notice it's there - it skitters out of sight and you leave it there.  
  
You've never felt more  _sick._  
  
"Boss." Which really he isn’t anymore, but you can't call him by his name, by any of them you've ever said. Not now. And he doesn't look up, not really - you've known, and  _dealt to_ , enough fiends in your time to see how _gone_  he is.  
  
And you knew. You knew before this, because he stopped letting you this close a long time ago - and ignored it, because you've been  _busy_ , with Frank, with Benny and Meyer. You knew before this because you saw how the edge in his tone and his eyes, the twitch in his fingers stopped being from the win, from simply not eating or sleeping enough.  
  
You'll only see Carolyn at the hospital in a year but you'll still know that this is what broke her, more than whatever other girls there were, (and if not more than the claws you and Meyer had in her husband's heart, you wouldn’t peer too far into how she  _looks_  at you). And you'll nod at her from a distance and want to believe she can still love him - because you do, when you have no right to him like she does.  
  
You perch on the edge of the bed near his hip with even your topcoat still on, and you don't want to touch him - it feels wrong and fills you with something furious and hard, the fact that he's limp and sweating and wouldn’t even be able to _fight_ you.  
  
You take a hold of his shirt before you know what you're doing, (remembering his hand tight on your wrist, firm in the middle of your back or just close, holding cards, or you, asked clear and cool nearby or right against your ear,  _what should I do here Charlie?_ )  
  
You want to wake him up (you can't), beat him bloody and and raw shaking screaming  _how could you_ (you would  _never),_  cradle him trembling until he comes back to himself and you can tell him you want to fix it, anything, _anything I can do._  
  
You won't.  
  
You want to shake him, vicious suddenly with your nails knotted into his shirt. You get close enough just in lifting him from the bed, fractions of an inch, until his head drops back and he makes some small, breathless sound.  
  
You break.  
  
You roll him to his side so he won't choke if he gets sick - you know this part like you've done it before. It's mechanical and simple, like unloading a gun, standing in the street without hearing tires or screaming just  _fire_ , hit and  _run._  
  
But you don't.  
  
Instead, you toe off your shoes, shrug off your coat and sit behind him, curled with your knees to your chest and not laying down - you won't sleep, keep a hand on his back so he won't roll, your weight there to keep him from moving.  
  
For the most part you stay to make sure he's breathing,  _why was this me,_  why not Meyer, who'd crack, rebuild and leave, a little more bitter and spiteful for it. And yet you're the one to keep mum and forgive him.  
  
He wakes up sometime in blue hours after dawn when you can barely keep your eyes open, and you realize with bleary vision that he's pawing for the needle. You take his hand instead.  
  
And he knows you without moving or rolling to see you, because you're not one of his girls in heat or weight or touch, and you've shed blood for him. He  _knows_  your hands.  
  
He does eventually look, wide-eyed like the closest thing he can seem to confusion or shame. You're both quiet - because it's a moment that should not have happened. You'll spend the next year pretending it didn't, until he takes a bullet and you die enough that you lock even Meyer out, at least until he threatens to blow holes in your door - and even then he'll know nothing about  _this_  day.  
  
You help him stand but let him clean himself up, as much as he's shaking and won't meet your eyes til he's done. And he comes back in fractions, perhaps half of his normal sharp edges back - and you do hit him then, once, so he reels and comes back to you with a look that might be something like spite.  
  
The ache in your chest dulls only at the fact that he  _tries_  to talk you down -  _hold on a minute, Charlie--_  
  
You still push him back, shaking in rage and hate you haven't felt since you still lived under fear of your father's belt and even that seems bland next to this, the way you can't bring yourself to do anything but shove him back into the mattress and yet  _he will not fight you._  
  
His mouth tastes dry, cotton and bones, and he’s unusually quiet as you undo him.  
  
There’s a second when you’ve got your mouth between his legs - (because it’s so familiar safe  _yours_  and he has bruises in a ring around his neck and his lip is spotted red where you bit down too hard) that he blinks and touches your hair and  _laughs,_ drags you up to kiss you loose and full of tongue and calls you  _Bonnie Prince,_ and you don’t know what that means - and you want to tell him you love him, except that isn’t right, isn’t quite true, he isn’t yours and you never wanted that, you just-  
  
You just want him _back._  
  
But you have business, liquor sales and drugs and Joe to deal with, squabbling of your boys between cross streets on Broadway that demand you sleep and be there to  _take care of things_  - the same as you can’t here, even though he’s shaking once you let him go and grabs your wrist and tells you  _wait--_  
  
But you don’t - can’t, will not - any more than he’d believe you would, for all the open desperation you shouldn’t be the one to see. You rearrange and pause at the mirror to fix your hair and find your cigarettes, remembering back rooms in tailor’s shops where he laid a hand on the small of your back and you didn’t have to fight so hard not to move away.  
  
 _Why you want me to wear this stuff anyway?_  
  
You want to pretend he lets you go because his hands are still shaking and not because he wants to.  
  
 _Because appearances, Charlie, are everything._


End file.
